They say when it rains it pours, and that’s what it feels like when it comes to litigation ethics and Biglaw firm Quinn Emanuel. We recently covered Quinn Emanuel’s recent $3 million ethics adventure in federal court, a sanctions order where Judge Edward M. Chen accused the firm of a “culture of lawyering that is deeply disturbing.” And turns out there’s more than one judge who takes issue with Quinn Emanuel’s lawyering, because what a Cayman Islands judge put in writing back in January about the firm’s conduct in a high-stakes private equity dispute is, well, not great for the firm.
Justice Jalil Asif KC of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands issued a 48-page ruling in Unicorn Biotech Ventures One Ltd v ATP III GP, Ltd (available below), a high-stakes dispute over a US$2.4 billion life sciences fund. The merits of that dispute — privilege, discovery, cross-border procedure — are complicated. What the judge had to say about Quinn Emanuel is a lot more straightforward. The judge has some, ahem, pointed thoughts about an affidavit submitted in the matter by the firm, which he called, “seriously misleading in several important respects.”
“The only apparent explanations for it are that it was gross incompetence in the preparation of his affidavit, of a kind that is very difficult to conceive would occur within a well-resourced firm of the stature of Quinn Emanuel, or that it was a deliberate attempt to mislead the court. I am driven to the latter conclusion.”
That’s from paragraph 130. The judge is addressing an affidavit filed by Andrew Berdon, Quinn Emanuel’s lead partner on the matter. And when the judge went looking for a charitable read, he couldn’t get there.
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According to the judge, the affidavit’s problems were multiple — a mischaracterization of Delaware procedure, a flatly inaccurate account of what happened during the Delaware trial, and a conspicuous omission of emails that would have directly undermined the GP’s central argument against the opposing party. On the last point, the judge was blunt:
I cannot see how Mr Berdon was not aware that his affidavit is seriously misleading.
What makes the timeline particularly hard to explain away is that opposing counsel called out the affidavit as misleading in open court on November 28th of last year, with Quinn Emanuel attorneys watching the hearing remotely. The judge communicated his ruling on December 1st. Mr. Berdon swore the affidavit on December 2nd, unchanged from the draft he had approved on November 27th.
There has been no communication from Mr Berdon, Quinn Emanuel or anyone on their behalf since that hearing, some 7 weeks ago, responding to [opposing counsel’s] complaints or suggesting that Mr Berdon or Quinn Emanuel accept that there were any errors in Mr Berdon’s affidavit.
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The judge also found that Quinn Emanuel hadn’t shared key exculpatory emails with their own Cayman co-counsel or their lead KC, leaving those lawyers to stand up in court and argue a version of events the judge found to be plainly wrong. Justice Asif was careful to say he didn’t think Cayman counsel would knowingly have misled the court, meaning the problems came from Quinn Emanuel’s side of the operation, and the Cayman lawyers were left holding the bag.
Justice Asif also included this gut-punch, “If Mr Berdon were an attorney-at-law in the Cayman Islands, it is likely that he would face a disciplinary complaint in relation to these matters. As he is not, I simply record my extreme dissatisfaction with his conduct and that of Quinn Emanuel in the respects that I have set out.”
The firm, for its part, has a very different take than the judge. A Quinn Emanuel spokesperson provided this statement:
“We respectfully but categorically disagree with Justice Jalil Asif KC’s remarks.
We are a firm of nearly 1,300 litigators practicing in 33 offices around the world. In the average month, we have more than 2,300 active cases. Every year, we try thousands of cases in courtrooms and tribunals all over the world – cases that are among the toughest and hardest fought.
In the Natera case, we have learned from Judge Chen’s findings, which arise out of the actions of a handful of lawyers. We are proud of our firm’s record of strong ethical compliance.”
You can read the entire benchslap below.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1